Der USA Bären-Thread

Hedge funds lost as much as €30bn (£24bn) after their move to short sell VW backfired when Porsche revealed it had secured 74pc of the equity and planned to seize control of its rival. This sent the shares soaring as funds scrambled to buy VW shares to close their short positions.
............
Porsche said it had information that "speculative short sellers have had to buy Volkswagen ordinary shares in order to fulfill their delivery obligations".
The luxury car maker also said it was not behind any of what it called market distortions.
"Porsche SE denies all responsibility for these market distortions and for the resulting risks to which the short sellers have exposed themselves," it said in a statement. "Porsche has not been active in the market during this share price movements. Allegations of price manipulation by Porsche are therefore without any foundation whatsoever."..German financial markets regulator BaFin said on Tuesday it was looking into the recent history of Volkswagen share trading to see if there has been any market manipulation or insider trading.
The two days of frantic trading has led to what is thought to be one of the heaviest losses on a single company's shares ever taken by hedge funds.
"This is without question the biggest single loss on a single stock in the history of hedge funds. It's a bloodbath," said Laurie Pinto, a broker at North Square Capital, a division of Winterflood.....One hedge fund said: "There have been some dark moments over the past few months but none blacker than this. We couldn't have dreamt a worse scenario."......"The German stock exchange has become a joke," said Andy Brough, a fund manager at Schroders.
Hedge funds had staked hundreds of millions of euros on VW shares falling in line with other car makers – short selling the equivalent of 13pc of the company's shares.
As well as the hedge funds, investment banks' proprietary desks are also believed to have short sold Volkswagen shares......
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/...o-sell-shares.html

"Island erhöht Leitzins auf 18,00 % (+ 6,00)"

da kommen doch einige Zweifel auf
ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2008/10/29/17585/...sche-really-kill/
....In reality, exchange data suggests something like 22m shares in VW have actually changed hands at prices ranging from €210 to €1005. Without getting too VWAP-ish about this, stripping out double counting, that points to maybe €6bn of business conducted at the “wrong” price. Slap a random €200-a-share price tag on VW and the realised losses come in at maybe €4bn.
Painful for those funds caught in the mire, yes - but far from fatal for the global hedge industry.
The damage to Germany’s financial markets, meanwhile, is unquantifiable.

das "leer" bei Leerverkäufen, die zu Lehrverkäufen wurden, verstanden haben? ;-)))

Ob sofort legt Porsche jedem verkauften Automobil ein Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache bei. Damit die Porsche fahrenden Hedgefondsmanager zukünfig solche Missverständnisse vermeiden können. ;-)))  

General Motors: Weltweiter Absatz sinkt im dritten Quartal um 11,4 Prozent
15:25 29.10.08

Detroit, MI (aktiencheck.de AG) - Der US-Automobilkonzern General Motors Corp. (GM) (Profil) gab am Mittwoch bekannt, dass sein weltweiter Absatz im dritten Quartal um 11,4 Prozent zurückgegangen ist.

Den Angaben zufolge wurden im Berichtszeitraum 2,11 Millionen Fahrzeuge verkauft, gegenüber 2,39 Millionen Fahrzeugen in der Vorjahresperiode. Der Rückgang sei vor allem auf den anhaltend schwierigen US-Markt sowie auf einen wachsenden Druck in Europa zurückzuführen. In Nordamerika ging der Absatz demnach um 18,9 Prozent zurück, während er in Europa um 12,3 Prozent abnahm.

In den ersten neun Monaten 2008 lag der weltweite GM-Absatz bei 6,66 Millionen Einheiten, was einem Rückgang von 5,8 Prozent zum Vorjahreszeitraum entspricht.
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aktuell plus 8 % !!!

Bafin, the German regulator, has announced in a laid-back sort of way that it will be examining share price movements around the episode to see if there was any insider dealing, but it already seems to have adopted the view that Porsche didn't do anything wrong. In other words, it is going to investigate the hedge funds, who are the victims of this sleight of hand, and not the perpetrators. Like so many things in these extraordinary markets, the origins of the problem go back to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, through which a number of hedge funds were running big short positions in Volkswagen (VW).

With recession looming, the German motor manufacturer looked classically overvalued, even though Porsche had announced its intention to raise its stake over time to 50 per cent. All over the world, motor manufacturers are in trouble, while in the US they may even be going bust. In any case, hedge funds believed that by shorting VW ordinary shares and going long of the preference stock, they were on to a sure-fire winner.

Unfortunately for them, the stock lent to Lehman's to support the short positions became frozen in the subsequent administration. The stock lenders – predominantly German pension funds – then moved to cover themselves by buying more VW stock using the Lehman holdings as collateral. The price of VW shares thereby started to move seriously against the hedge funds.

But what really did for the hedgies was that, unbeknown to the outside world, Porsche was secretly raising its stake through derivatives and options to a smidgen under 75 per cent. Together with the 20 per cent stake held by the government ofLower Saxony, this left hardly any stock available to close out the roughly 10 to 15 per cent of the company that is being shorted. As hedge funds scrambled to close their positions on Monday and yesterday, the VW share price rocketed, making VW briefly the biggest company in the world by market capitalisation and sending Germany's main index, the Dax, soaring. The only party sitting pretty is Porsche, which may or may not be a long-term holder of the 74 per cent of the company it appears to control.
Hedge funds doubt it has the financial resources to go so high, but that was before it squeezed the life out of the hedge funds, who may unwittingly have provided Porsche with all the firepower it needs. More than 30 per cent of the VW holding is in the form of options, or commitments to buy the shares at a later date for a particular price. As a result, Porsche is the only major holder able to satisfy the hedgies' need to close their positions. Porsche stands to make more out of a few weeks of speculating on markets than it could in years of selling cars.

According to Bafin, Porsche was under no obligation to disclose the options, and therefore appears to have acted legally throughout. On one level, it is really quite heartening to see the vultures of Mayfair get their come-uppance at the hands of the industrialists of Zuffenhausen. If a few speculators get killed in the grand plan to consolidate the German car industry, who cares. Oh what joy for the Germans if it is true that Chris Hohn's TCI, scourge of the Deut-sche Borse a few years back, is one of the hedge funds trampled in the dash for the exit. Yet even in such moralising times as these, the integrity of the capital markets have to be upheld.

Porsche and its brokers, with the apparent backing of the German authorities, have singularly failed to do this. Even hedgies can have a fast one pulled on them, and that's precisely what seems to have happened here. The fact that it ill becomes the hedge-fund industry, masters of sec-recy, to complain about lack of transparency is neither here nor there.
www.independent.co.uk/news/business/...n-be-abused-977032.html

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/...n-be-abused-977032.html

If ever there were a country and a people that signalled their distaste for hedge funds, private equity and the self-defined alternative investment industry, that country and people were Germany and the GermansIt was this famous quote of April 2005 to the German popular newspaper, Bild, by the then Deputy Chancellor of Germany, Franz Munterfering, that didn't exactly represent a "come-in-and-make-yourself-comfortable" message to the rocket scientists of financial services:
"Some financial investors spare no thought for the people whose jobs they destroy. They remain anonymous, have no face, fall like a plague of locusts over our companies, devour everything, then fly on to the next one."

Priority www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6e23cdc8-a517-11dd-b4f5-000077b07658.html
Give credit where credit is due: Nouriel Roubini of New York University’s Stern School of Business was right. On February 20 2008, I wrote a column entitled “America’s economy risks the mother of all meltdowns”, based on his analysis of the 12 steps to disaster. Alas, not only has the US taken those steps, but it has also – with help from others, including the UK – dragged the world behind it.  ...........

                                                                                       keine Zeit mein Hund muss runter,dürft Ihr selber lesen

nicht mehr lebendig machen, also Preis rauf!

Der algerische Ölminister Chatib Khelil sagte nach der Krisensitzung, es gebe derzeit "zu viel Öl auf dem Markt" und die Ölvorräte seien "sehr groß".

Die Opec-Minister gingen davon aus, dass die jetzt beschlossene Drosselung der Produktion das Wachstum der Weltwirtschaft nicht beeinflussen werde. "Das Wachstum in den USA und in Europa ist bereits tot."

http://www.ftd.de/boersen_maerkte/aktien/...ung-kr%E4ftig/430145.html

morgen früh mit einem Gewicht von 14,94%. Unter 10% sollten also bis Freitag Abend möglich sein.  

Die Erklärung von Steffens ("Steffens Daily" von heute) zur VW-Rallye ist in sich schlüssig und macht mE Sinn:

http://www.ariva.de/...lye_macht_Sinn_t325389?pnr=4901533#jump4901533  

Dieser Chart reflektiert Folgendes: "Inflationierung", zuletzt extrem, des Nominalbetrags der Fed Monetary Base, auf deren Kehrseite jedoch "Deflationierung" des "inneren Wertes" steht.

Hier geht es um die Fed Free Reserves, quasi um das "Eigenkapital" der Fed. Alles Andere, was die Fed noch besitzt, ist "Fremdkapital" seitens der Treasury - und das sind Schuldverschreibungen. Fazit: Unter betriebswirtschaftlichen Gesichtspunkten ist die Fed pleite!

online.wsj.com/article/SB122528340048979949.html

Eigentlich habe ich ja mit einem STARKEN "Freudenhüpfer" gerechnet, aber nun dies. Au weia!

Add U.K.Odey Asset Management to the list of hedge funds punished by the soaring shares in German car maker Volkswagen The Wall Street Journal reported that the list of hedge funds affected by the VW stock move included Greenlight Capital, SAC Capital–the world’s most expensive hedge fund, with management fees of 5% and performance fees of 50%–Glenview Capital, Marshall Wace, Tiger Asia, Perry Capital and Highside Capital.

Odey is one of the U.K.’s longest-standing hedge fund managers,......

blogs.wsj.com/deals/2008/10/29/...ng-losers-on-vw-share-surge/

stützen die Rallye. www.handelsblatt.com/finanzen/auswertung/422

Also aufpassen.

es geht eben darum wie viele Leute "auf dem falschen Fuß" erwischt werden können

das ist ja cool, das Greenlight was auf die Mütze gekriegt hat. Das sind ja die viel besungenen Short-Könige von 2008.

mal eben 500 Punkte runter in den letzten 10 Minuten.

Wie soll man da ernsthaft strategische Positionen halten?

Rev Shark Blog

Even Daytraders Can't Handle This Volatility

By Rev Shark
Street.com Contributor
10/29/2008 4:15 PM EDT


What a roller-coaster ride of a market. The DJIA moves about 400 points in the final 10 minutes of trading, wiping out the days gains. Anxiety about being left behind, a short squeeze and program trading gave us another powerful up move in the final hour of trading, but with about 10 minutes left, a huge selling wave hit and drove us sharply back down.

The moves in the last hour have been so crazy lately they are a joke. Even the shortest-term daytraders are complaining about the level of volatility. The moves are so fast and whipsaws so big that it is impossible to employ any money-management discipline. It has to be huge programs operating, because human traders just can't move that fast manually.

I've been yammering lately about the need for a decrease in volatility, and we sure didn't see it happen. It looked like it was going to be a relatively quiet day for a while, but the Fed decision resulted in the usual jig, and then the final hour shenanigans were over the top.

The good news is that we didn't give back that much of yesterday's big gain. We can still stabilize and build a base, but we need these wild swings to end. Investors are not going to have confidence in the market if they see their accounts go up and down 5% in a matter of minutes.

The bulls still have the advantage, but this is not an easy market for anyone. There was some good action in oil, coal, gold and commodities, but many of the gains were cut in half in the final few minutes of trading. You sometimes have to wonder when we might see a "normal" market once again. [Ich glaube, bei SPX unter 500 würde es etwas ruhiger - A.L.]

Keep on plugging away. The one thing we can now for sure about this market is that things will keep on changing.

Chinesen und Araber sind sehr nachtragend. Deren Staatsfonds haben in den USA erheblich Federn lassen müssen. Ich gehe davon aus, dass sich die Chinesen und die arabischen Emirate diese Verluste mit Zins und Zinseszins zurückholen werden. Für frisches Geld von dieser Seite werden die Amis in nächster Zeit wohl tief in den - leeren - Säckel greifen müssen. Und dies wirkt sich u.a. auf die Hypothekenzinsen aus, die sich an den Treasury-Langläufern orientieren. ...

Zunächst die Versicherer:

MTG: plus 39,4 %
MBI: plus 18,2 %

AIG: minus 15,3 %
AET: minus 8 %

Und nun die interessanteste Divergenz zwischen den Private Home Builders und den Commercial Real Estate Unternehmen:

CTX: plus 19 %
DHI: plus 15,5 %
KBH: plus 11,2 %

GGP: minus 11,8 %
BXP: minus 10,6 %
KIM: minus 7,9 %        - die drei größten der Branche!

Die erste Gruppe ist die "Domäne" der Privatanleger, die offensichtlich die blauäugige Vorstellung hegen, nach der erneuten Leitzinssenkung dürfte es nun mit dem "Häusle-Bauen" wieder aufwärts gehen. Die zweite Gruppe ist jedoch die "Domäne" der Instis, die die Realität kennen.

Der größte Witz ist aber mE der Kurssprung von WYN (plus 25,5 %), eine der global größten Hotelketten-Holdings mit 6900 Anlagen unter 12 verschiedenen Namen, u.a. Days Inn, Ramada und Travellodge. Speziell dieser Sektor leidet schon seit etlichen Monaten unter sehr erheblichen Umsatz-/Gewinneinbußen.

Schaeffer's Short Takes: Now or When for the S&P 500 Index?

#076959; font-style: italic">Examining the S&P 500 Index's (SPX) performance and what it says for our market

by Bernie Schaeffer  10/28/2008 10:25 AM

This past weekend, Chris Prybal of our Quantitative Analysis department wondered if the 20 year S&P chart below was indicating such an oversold extreme and such a volatility extreme that if the market does not bottom now, when could it possibly be expected to bottom? On the chart below, the red line in its own pane is the SPX's on balance volume for the period, the teal line is the SPX's volatility, the purple line is SPX's relative strength index, and the orange line is the SPX's stochastics.

In pondering Chris's question, I decided to extend the monthly chart further as reproduced below.

One could argue that a 25-year bull market ended in early-2000, even considering the bottom in 2002-2003 at the 160-month moving average (blue) and the subsequent move to marginal new highs in 2007. The S&P was basically cut in half from 2000-2003, doubled from 2003-2007 and has now effectively been cut in half again. This is not long-term bull market behavior, and it is further accentuated by the slice this month through the 160-month and then the 195-month moving average.

But what might be of greatest concern is the fact that 10-month historical volatility for the S&P at 35% (in blue in its own pane) is only matching that which occurred in 2002-2003, and is shy of what occurred in 1987. This is due to the fact that the current volatility explosion was preceded by three years of very low volatility. Low volatility doesn't always have to be unwound as a negative for the market, as you can see from how the low volatility of the early-1990's resolved itself into a major bull market replete with rising volatility (a sign of speculation, which of course ultimately killed it).

But this time, the low volatility was created in large part by mean reversion-based activity (premium selling and quant trading) by the dominant players in the market – the hedge funds – and it is the massive unwinding of this "dimes in front of a steamroller" trade that is creating a mirror image of high volatility as well as death and destruction in its path. To this I will add the unwinding of a bubble they created in commodities stocks that in retrospect put the tech bubble of the 1990's to shame.

"Now or when?" is a good question, and the answer is that nobody knows because so much depends on how much further the hedge-fund unwind has to go. A related question is whether the full extent of the toxic credit derivatives situation (also created by the existence of big hedge fund money looking for easy returns) has been played out. The current situation is also different from past big declines in that there are no natural buyers to support the market. The public has been out of US stocks for years and is getting decimated by their huge emerging markets exposure and is scared (but not scared enough). Mutual fund managers and financial advisors can talk it up on CNBC and cite all the examples in history where pullbacks were a great time to buy, but they've got no new money to invest. In addition, corporations cannot and/or will not buy back their stock as liquidity is being hoarded.

And all this is occurring while the market is in its worst technical condition in three decades, so I feel calls for a bottom are premature in both time and in price and the best you can say about this market is that it's very oversold and that any bounces should be viewed in this context.

Quelle: http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/

wirtschaftquerschuss.blogspot.com/2008/10/...-1000-punkte.html